by Robert Cea
“I love you, baby, I love you, baby, I love you, baby…” She repeated this to me slowly, over and over. She was now where she wanted to be, with the man she wanted to share this ecstasy with for the rest of her life. I rolled her over, wrapped my hands around her wrists, and closed my eyes as I moved deeply inside her. Our lovemaking was usually gentle, working for each other slowly, but tonight it was about exploration, learning something else about our bodies. I’m sure she enjoyed the danger of this, making love in someone else’s home. The possibility of getting caught must’ve been exciting; I’m sure this also helped her to achieve what she wanted, that incredible climax.
I suddenly entered a zone, a dark place that I had never been to with Mia. I was no longer on that thick carpet, I was somewhere else, a netherworld where salsa music pulsed. I saw Roxanne, I saw women snorting cocaine in a tight bathroom with red walls and a bare bulb. I saw that beautiful Jamaican who’d dropped off a bag of cash for me, and I saw those bodies lying lifeless in steel metal drawers. I saw the boy, the one who could’ve been me. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them. Where was Mia? I grabbed hold of her face and she was screaming my name. I finally saw her, Mia, there underneath me, scared, scared to death.
We dressed quickly and walked out back without looking at the rest of this incredible home. We sat out on the boat finger; I didn’t know how to explain what had happened. I’d left my body, someone else had entered and violated what was pure? The guilt I felt was insurmountable.
“It was like you were someone else. I couldn’t stop you, even your face changed…”
“Mi, I’m sorry. I would never hurt you.” I looked into her eyes; they were rimmed in red, but worst of all, they were confused. This was a woman who at all times had everything clocked to the nanosecond, but right now she was lost and all I wanted to do was get her back, allow her to gain control again. “Mi, you are the blood that runs through my veins; what happened in there had to be from the wine and weirdness of being in someone else’s home, and I’ve had only an hour’s sleep in two days.” I held her in my arms, I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her gently as I told her the truth. “I’m just so scared, Mi, this is all so different for me, I am not from this world, I’ve never been a part of it. I’m afraid when you wake up from this dream and realize that I am not the guy you think I am, you’ll leave me, and I could not live without you. I would not last a second Mi, not a second.”
She pulled me to her and rocked me. She was back in control. “I know who I am marrying, I know who you are, and I am so proud of you. You are the only one for me.”
We kissed, and I would have done anything for her at that moment, anything, and that was that. She held me in her arms, a foghorn gently tapped rhythmically in the distance; the tide was moving in, which allowed the water to soothingly pound the dock; I did not let her go. I turned and looked at that marvelous landscape and the beautiful colonial stonework and once again all I could think about was my next tour of duty in the Badlands.
6
“Escopeta Pequeña”
I didn’t tell Billy about the episode with Mia. I very rarely let him into my personal world, although truth be known, Billy, the Badlands, my job, my career–that’s all there was for me at that point. I was stuck somewhere in the middle of actually having a personal life: Which part of my life was the personal one, which one should be kept a closely guarded secret, and who was I keeping that secret from? When I was with Mia, I kept the streets and what I was doing in them away from her; when I was with Billy, Mia and the luminous light that she brought to me was off limits to him. I had now truly fractured my world in two. I guess I wanted to be able to create that perfect balance. Things don’t always happen exactly the way you want though.
We were doing a day tour in sector Charlie, which wasn’t the Badlands but was still in the 6-7 and a dangerous place, as dangerous as any in the city. A large section of sector Charlie was Church Avenue, the road that cut right through the middle of the precinct, running to the farthest points west, which actually was where the station house was situated, and it ran completely east into the Badlands. It was approximately five miles long, bordered on the east side by the 7-3, west by the 7-0, and in part, north by the 7-1 precinct; each of these precincts was among the top ten every year in brutal felony crime. If the 6-7 was the nucleus of these three precincts, then Church Avenue was the DNA strand that linked all of hell together.
The avenue was filled with rotty houses; jerk chicken restaurants; record stores that blasted Bob Marley and the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, and an assortment of third-world tunes through the streets from speakers jerry-rigged above their doorways. There were storefront weed spots, hair extension salons; men would illegally park their vans, open the back doors, and out of the back sell sugar cane, hawk mangos and watermelon, intricately carved bongs and pipes, incense and oils. The avenue was rife with color, music, and a dangerous mix of men from different cultures who carried guns. The American blacks, or homegrowns as they’re called, took over this area during the white flight of the early seventies, then the Jamaicans started to populate the area. Their smart business sense of selling weed in doorways and offering a variety of different smoke became a bone of contention with the homegrowns, who had made a good living up to that point by selling nickels and trey bags on the corners. The Jamaicans came in with their posses, and the homegrowns were pretty much shut down or had to work for the Jamaicans. Needless to say, there was never any love lost between the two cultures.
Most of the stores were on the ground floor of two-story buildings. Above these stores were railroad-type apartments, generally two to each building, one left and one right. The apartments were tight and dirty. I hated going on jobs in there because the stairways up to the apartments were so narrow you had to climb them almost sidling against the wall. If someone wanted to get the jump on two cops, these would be the buildings to do it in. The radio barked, “Sixseven Charlie, K.”
Billy picked up the radio. “Go for Charlie, K.”
“Charlie; fifty two, family dispute, 3207 Church Avenue, K.”
“We’ll check and advise, K.”
I swung the car into a U-turn. I hated family disputes, as did most cops. By the time the police were called, the situation was usually way the fuck out of control, somewhere up in the ether, and most of the time someone had been assaulted, 99.9 percent of the time a woman, and badly. The emotional level in any family dispute was off the charts, to say the very least, so these jobs were never easy. I had already been to many of these jobs, and more than a few times the man of the house would turn on us, demeaned in front of his woman or children. We would have to, not so gently, subdue him and then place him under arrest for assaulting us. Suddenly, at the sight of seeing the breadwinner of the household exiting with cuffs on, the woman of the house, who’d made the call in the first place, would subsequently turn on us, leaving us with no choice other than to have to collar her as well. There were always young children in the house, so the bureau of child welfare would have to be notified and then the problems and paper just escalated beyond belief. Now, back in the day, when cops arrived at the scene and anyone was assaulted, these offenses were generally squashed simply by escorting the gentleman out of the home, then warning him not to come back for a few hours. That would most certainly be when the cops’ tour of duty ended for the day, but since many of these “gentlemen” would worm their way back into the homes and subsequently murder their spouses, the days of shit-canning family disputes was a thing of the past. Today, however, this was one for the books.
We arrived at the scene having already been advised by central that there was a backlog on the radio, which meant that there weren’t any units available for backup. Everyone was on other jobs, including the patrol sergeant, so we were on our own. Now, we felt salty enough not to think twice about needing a backup on such a garden-variety family dispute, but like rifling on a bullet slug, no two family disputes are ever the same. Billy responded non
chalantly that “no back up would be needed.” We pulled up to one of those secondstory apartments situated over a low-end liquor store whose primary business was definitely not the sale of liquor. A Hispanic woman, probably in her twenties, though she looked to be in her forties, was holding on to two crying children. This in itself was an anomaly because there were no Hispanics in this part of Brooklyn. This family was probably the last holdout from a time gone by. The woman’s faded nightgown was torn at her shoulders, revealing deep scratches probably requiring stitches. Her face was wet with tears and she looked terrified.
A crowd was already gathered as we exited the RMP. The first thing I looked for was anyone in the crowd who looked suspicious, maybe cocky enough to be carrying a pistol. This was all I thought about, guns and more guns. This poor woman whose life was about to be turned upside down had become secondary to me, and that on my part was, and is, inexcusable. Billy and I walked to the woman, like two done-it-all, seen-it-all hair bags. Who we were was Mister Dumb and Mister Complacent, and the second you get cocky and allow your guard to drop, that is when reality, most def, will rear its ugliness.
I looked at Billy and coolly said, “I’m going to talk to this guy, Billy, you stay with the woman.”
“My husband,” she screamed in barely audible spurts of English and Spanish; she was also hyperventilating, which made it even harder to understand what she was saying or trying to say. Billy held on to her gently with both of his hands, trying to calm her. “He’s got my baby, he’s drunk, he’s got my, my, baby, please, he got the baby.”
I walked toward the apartment, still with an eye on the street, smiling, assuring the boys who eyed me that we’d definitely hook up again. One of the boys, who could not be any older than sixteen and who was wearing a colorful gym suit and short, nappy dreads, smiled a mouthful of gold at me, pointed an imaginary gun at me, and said, “Yeah, man, you the gun boy, you the gun boy, never get me with no strap.” I smiled at the Rasta in training and moved to the entrance; the Spanish woman was screaming and crying louder. My gun was still holstered and I didn’t even have a nightstick with me.
“Please, my baby, escopeta pequeña!”
I stopped short. Escopeta pequeña. My Spanish was poor, though there were certain words I was sure to remember and know, like escopeta, rifle; pequeña, small. She was saying that her husband had a small rifle. She’d also said when we arrived that he had her baby, gun and a baby; I turned to Billy, who already was on his way to me with his pistol out. He pulled the radio out of its holder and notified central that this was now a dispute with a gun, child involved. She advised us that there was still no one available, and yes, we were still on our own.
We moved up the stairs cautiously. The door to the railroad apartment was open, and as I neared it I yelled inside that we were the police, the good guys, and we wanted to talk; there was no answer back. I felt my hands start to shake. This wasn’t like chasing someone right in front of you, someone you could take out in an instant if he made the wrong move. No, this was a different scenario. I did not know where the man with the baby and the gun was. He could’ve been hiding behind a couch or in a closet, just waiting for us to enter, and systematically taken all of us out. The fear of the unknown is always worse, trust me.
I edged my way into the apartment. The first room in off the tiny hall was a kitchen. I peeked in; it was empty. Billy was behind me, covering my front. I felt him low, which told me he was kneeling and moving on his haunches. However, the subject of this call was holding a baby. What if he uses the baby as a shield, what if he uses the baby as a card to get out, what in the fuck do I do if he is holding the baby and starts shooting, what if we shoot the baby . . . These thoughts ran through my mind as I nervously moved toward the next room. I was young and scared, no longer that cocky hair bag who’d exited the RMP minutes before, eyeing the street for a real collar. I was just a young cop in a really bad situation; but that was what I was getting paid to do.
Sweat from my brow started to drip into my eyes. They burned. My throat was dry, and Jesus, did my hands tremble. I moved into the living room, a mess—tables turned over, an ancient TV with a bottle thrown through the tube, broken glass everywhere, the shades torn and windows curtainless. The sun was still at a low angle in the sky and shot rays through the nicotine-colored glass washing the room in an ugly yellow. The thing that was really raising me up was that in all the time we were up there, we had not heard the baby cry. That, and knowing that the distraught woman’s husband had a gun, was making me angry, angry because he was in control; he had the cards and it was his deck. I hated this feeling of being at another man’s mercy, of not being able to see what was happening. That is when I started screaming.
“Police, we’re here to talk, sir, please, we just want to talk.” I was screaming through the open door of the last room in the apartment. Billy tapped my leg and I noticed a closet in the living room; we were on two sides of the doorjamb in the beginning of the room, and Billy moved slowly to the closet. Now I had to cover him, keeping an eye on the closet door and an eye on that back-bedroom door. He made his way to the closet, ripped it open to emptiness. My bladder was telling me it was full. The last thing I wanted was to pee my pants, but it was quite possible that that might occur. I shook off my nervousness. I now knew that he was in fact in the last room, as the bathroom was off to the side of the living room and it was open and empty. I moved to the doorjamb on the living room side, held my breath, and peeked in. I pulled my head back, squeezed my eyes tight, then looked at Billy and nodded to him that he was, in fact, in the room.
Now he was as nervous as I was, and Billy was the type of guy who would rather take the wall down than walk through the front door. He was a very physical guy, and this situation certainly wasn’t something that he could just hit with his fist or a nightstick to resolve. This scenario needed finessing, the kind that neither one of us could do, or the kind that wasn’t taught to us in the academy. He started screaming, “Sir, we need you to come out here where we can see you, please, sir.”
No answer; I looked in once again and got a clearer picture of what was before me: An overweight Spanish man was sitting in a weathered rocking chair with a quiet infant in his lap. He was sipping rum from a Bacardi bottle, and across his and the child’s lap was a cut-down shotgun, escopeta pequeña.
“Billy, he’s got a cutoff and he’s holding the kid.” I said this loudly, loud enough for him to hear, though for no reason other than tremendous fear. Now we both screamed loudly at this man holding this blameless kid. The room was tight and dirty and hot. Our screams were echoing, bouncing off the walls and into our ears; it was a terrible situation to be in, as he was simply staring out the window, chugging rum, holding this baby. It seemed as if he didn’t even know we were there, not eight feet from him. This made the situation all the scarier because he was so not of sound mind. I remember thinking how in trouble we were, how in trouble this guy must’ve been, how he just stared out into those miserable streets and how they must’ve sapped him of his pride and dignity. I knew at that early stage of the game that the streets had those capabilities, could tear down even the strongest of wills.
The radio was squawking, central trying to raise us, but neither Billy nor I could respond. We were gripped by white-knuckled fear. We eventually heard sirens in the distance, but again, what good would they do? He was in control; as long as he held on to that infant, he was the cumumba-jumba. For all the screaming we were doing, all the pleading to at least let the little guy crawl to us, it did absolutely no good, he just stared out that window, drinking that rum. And then, as if it were an act of God, he turned to us, his eyes not as vacant. This is a good thing, he is back on the planet, I thought. Oh thank you, God, thank you, there will not be blood here today. Before that thought was completed, he smiled at us. This was promising.
He said, “Take care a the baby.”
I didn’t understand what he said; I was trying to gauge him—was he still smiling, w
here was the baby—and then suddenly he lifted the shotgun, I could not get a shot in, I dropped to my knees. Oh no, the baby, God, no…
He quickly placed the gun under his own chin and pulled the trigger. I felt the concussed explosion as my eyes closed, I felt my knees giving out, and I heard the baby screaming. He’s alive! I thought. I opened my eyes and charged into the room. The air was filled with smoke and a fine mist of blood. The baby was in the man’s death grip. I did not want to look at the body, but I had no choice. His head was completely ripped off at the neck, split in two behind the powerful blast, and the face mask of the man slid down the wall and rested in a smoky and bloody heap. Blood cascaded down the walls, from the ceiling and every corner of the room. His carotid artery was still pumping the remaining blood out of the gaping hole where his head once was. Suddenly there was no sound in the room, just that echoing and ringing in my ears. I charged for the baby, pulled at him with such ferocity that I dislocated the poor infant’s shoulder; I knew this the second it occurred. The baby just wailed, then he started to cough and turn blue, choking on his own vomit. He was also covered in blood. I was terrified; I checked him for bullet holes. He was clean, the blood was his father’s; I wasn’t aware of anything that was happening around me, everything was moving, strobelike. I wasn’t sure of what had just occurred. I was shaking, and I knew I was working on the baby, I saw him below me, I saw the blood and viscous he was covered in, I saw him coughing, turning bluer; I turned him over; his diaper was soiled, feces erupted out of the sides and onto my legs and uniform shirt. I balled up my fist, reached under his tiny belly, found where the diaphragm should be, and pulled my fist up and out to where his thin chest bone started. I did this four times, until he coughed; he then threw up. I turned him over and cleaned out his mouth; I then cradled him in my arms. I tried desperately not to cry, I felt my mouth jittering, I felt the tears rolling down my face, and I just sat in a bloody corner rocking this baby, only feet from a gruesome reality that was this child’s life. I wanted to rip my eyes from my head, tear my teeth out, I wanted to stand up and stomp on that bloody, twitching body, I wanted to scream, but I could not. I was helpless. Billy might have been right next to me, I don’t know. I was all alone in a bloody cocoon trying to protect that blameless infant from a sad reality.